Showing results by narrator "Steven Crossley" in All Categories

After the death of his sweetheart when he was at university, Daniel Herbert buried his grief in medical studies and his passion for healing. Viewed as a saint by those who know him, in his own mind, he never quite manages to live up to his own high standards. Most men would be thrilled to learn they've inherited a title and estate from a distant relative, but Daniel is appalled because the burden of wealth will interfere with his medical calling.

Thomas atte Bridge, a man no one likes, is found hanging from a tree near Cowleys Corner. All assume he has taken his own life, but Master Hugh and Kate find evidence that this may not be so. Many of the town had been harmed by Thomas, and Hugh is not eager to send one of them to the gallows. Then he discovers that the priest John Kellet, atte Bridge’s partner in crime in A Corpse at St. Andrew’s Chapel, was covertly in Bampton at the time atte Bridge died.

After being set adrift at sea, baby Mordred is found by fisherfolk who raise him as their own. One day, a beautiful, magical lady appears to carry him back to his birth-mother's cold castle. There, alone but for his faithful dog, he comes of age and learns the horrible truth about his identity. Everyone knows Mordred as the dark, evil son who kills the noble King Arthur. But what would it be like to be born as Mordred, an unwanted child with a dreadful destiny?

Nelson's crews are standing down and Ramage is on leave when he receives secret Admiralty orders to inspect the small island of Trinidade off the coast of Brazil. Reaching the island, Ramage and the crew of the Calypso fetch up in a battle to free several captive merchant ships - and a beautiful woman passenger - as they cross swords with bloodthirsty priates.

Some valuable books have been stolen from Master John Wyclif, the well-known scholar and Bible translator. He calls upon his friend and former pupil, Hugh de Singleton, to investigate. Hugh’s investigation leads him to Oxford where he again encounters Kate, the only woman who has tempted him to leave bachelor life behind, but Kate has another serious suitor. As Hugh’s pursuit of Kate becomes more successful, mysterious accidents begin to occur. Are these accidents tied to the missing books, or to his pursuit of Kate?

In late 1756, as the British government collapses in the aftermath of the loss of Minorca, and the country and navy are thrown into political chaos, a small force of ships is sent to the West Indies to reinforce the Leeward Islands Squadron. Captain Edward Carlisle and his first lieutenant George Holbrooke are fresh from the Mediterranean and their capture of a powerful French man-of-war. Their new frigate Medina has orders to join a squadron commanded by a terminally ill commodore. Their mission: a near-suicidal assault on a strong Caribbean island fortress.

In The Moon and Sixpence, Charles Strickland is a respectable London stockbroker who decides in middle age to abandon his wife and children and devote himself to his true passion: art. Strickland's destructive desire for self-expression takes him first to Paris to learn the craft of painting, and finally to Tahiti in the South Pacific. The Moon and Sixpence remains a complex and engaging novel echoing Maugham's own struggles between artistic expression and public respectability.

Barrister Matthew Shardlake is faced with the most terrifying threat in the age of Tudor England: his own imprisonment in the Tower of London. Harsh autumn winds stir the English countryside as King Henry VIII, along with a thousand soldiers and his fifth wife, Catherine Howard, make their way from London to York after a violent uprising.

In Behind the Throne, historian Adrian Tinniswood uncovers the reality of five centuries of life at the English court, taking the listener on a remarkable journey from one Queen Elizabeth to another and exploring life as it was lived by clerks and courtiers and clowns and crowned heads: the power struggles and petty rivalries, the tension between duty and desire, the practicalities of cooking dinner for thousands and of ensuring the king always won when he played a game of tennis.

I Let You Go follows Jenna Gray as she moves to a ramshackle cottage on the remote Welsh coast, trying to escape the memory of the car accident that plays again and again in her mind and desperate to heal from the loss of her child and the rest of her painful past. At the same time, the novel tracks the pair of Bristol police investigators trying to get to the bottom of this hit-and-run.

From William Shakespeare’s series of history dramas, to Sir Walter Scott, and George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire—not to mention the smash-hit TV show Game of Thrones—the British civil war of 1455 to 1485 has inspired writers for centuries. Ed West’s My Kingdom for a Horse illuminates the bloody war fought for thirty long years between the descendants of King Edward III in a battle for the throne.

In 871, three of England’s four kingdoms were overrun by Vikings, the ruthless, all-conquering Scandinavian raiders who terrorized early medieval Europe. With the Norsemen murdering one king with arrows and torturing another to death by ripping out his lungs, the prospects that faced the kingdom of Wessex were bleak. Worse still, the Saxons were now led by a young man barely out of his teens who was more interested in God than fighting.

It is the autumn of 1367. Master Hugh de Singleton is enjoying the peaceful life of Bampton when a badly beaten man is found under the porch of St. Andrew’s Chapel. The dying man is a chapman - a traveling merchant. Before he is buried in the chapel grounds an ancient, corroded coin is found in the man’s mouth. Master Hugh’s quest for the chapman’s assailants, and his search for the origin of the coin, makes steady progress - but there are men of wealth and power who wish to halt his search, and an old nemesis, Sir Simon Trillowe, is in league with them.

Consistently appearing on US and UK best-seller lists, C.J. Sansom’s Matthew Shardlake mysteries have earned considerable critical acclaim, including a CWA Ellis Peters Historical Dagger Award. At the behest of a former servant to Catherine Parr, Shardlake travels to Portsmouth to investigate claims of unspeakable crimes committed upon a young ward of the court. There, Shardlake uncovers disturbing evidence even as England’s continuing war with France rages around him.

Rasselas and his companions escape the pleasures of the "happy valley" in order to make their "choice of life". By witnessing the misfortunes and miseries of others they come to understand the nature of happiness and value it more highly. Their travels and enquiries raise important practical and philosophical questions concerning many aspects of the human condition, including the business of a poet, the stability of reason, the immortality of the soul, and how to find contentment.

W. Somerset Maugham is one of the best-loved short story writers of the last 100 years. In this collection of his finest short work Maugham takes the listener to the sun-drenched Pacific islands where the Governor mercilessly abuses the inhabitants; to the story "Rain", in which the Reverend and the prostitute play out one of the most famous finales ever written; to the studies of chauvinistic Colonels, and snide conversations in Edwardian drawing rooms, as well as at the gates of heaven. As an introduction to one of the greatest writers in the English language Stephen Crossley's reading is the perfect place to start.

They called themselves the Bombay Buccaneers - and under that flamboyant name they blazed a trail of daring and adventure from the Gulf of Oman to the waters of Macao. For courage, loyalty, and renown few of the Buccaneers could match their Captain, Percival Merewether, a brilliant seaman who was already the hero of a score of fabled sea-faring campaigns. Newly in command of the 36-gun frigate Pitt, Merewether is about to set sail again.

James, Lord Kirkland, owns a shipping fleet, half a London gaming house, and is a ruthlessly effective spymaster. He is seldom self-indulgent… except when it comes to the gentle, indomitable beauty who was once his wife. Laurel Herbert gave James her heart as an innocent young girl - until she saw him perform an act of shocking violence before her very eyes. That night she left her husband, and he let her go without a word of protest.

A brand-new collection of four intense, claustrophobic and terrifying horror tales from the Bram Stoker Award®-nominated and Splatterpunk Award-winning author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke.

Machines Like Me occurs in an alternative 1980s London. Britain has lost the Falklands War, Margaret Thatcher battles Tony Benn for power, and Alan Turing achieves a breakthrough in artificial intelligence. Meanwhile, two lovers will be tested beyond their understanding. Charlie, drifting through life and dodging full-time employment, is in love with Miranda, a bright student who lives with a terrible secret. When Charlie comes into money, he buys Adam, one of the first batch of synthetic humans. With Miranda's assistance, he co-designs Adam's personality.